Lt. General Wants Blurred/Dated Imagery Where US Troops Reside

Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, who manages space and missile systems development for the Air Force, told that to military journalists earlier this week.

“...he is pressuring domestic licensing authorities to force satellite imagery providers to reduce the resolution of their images in areas where American troops are engaged, or to delay their image feed so that an adversary can’t get up-to-the-minute information on U.S. and allied military moves.” Do we have commercial satellite imagery operators that provide up-to-the-minute imagery? Can he force international players to do follow these rules?

The article goes on: “Most free online imaging tools block the resolution of their satellite photos in sensitive regions…” and then notes the recent StreetView incident where Google’s vans were allowed to photograph a base. It’s Google’s policy not to ask to enter, but in this case, as I understand it, the Google folks did ask and were allowed in. Those details were not mentioned.